After more than a year of economic suffering, Portugal can now hope that the worst is over”, said Executive Vice President of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis, in a reaction to the Lusa News Agency regarding the European Commission’s spring economic forecasts.

“We expect Portuguese GDP to expand by 3.9 percent in 2021 and again by 5.1 percent in 2022, against the EU [European Union] projections of 4.2 percent and 4.4 percent, respectively”, said Valdis Dombrovskis in his statement to Lusa.

The executive vice president added that “Portugal’s economic recovery will be helped to a great extent by the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism to finance the necessary reforms and investments”.

The European Commission on 12 May revised the economic growth expected for Portugal this year, now pointing to 3.9 percent, when in February it expected 4.1 percent.

The 3.9 percent growth forecasts announced on 12 May by the European Commission are exactly in line with those of Banco de Portugal (BdP) and those of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), one tenth below the 4.0 percent expected by the Government and above 3.3 percent of the Public Finance Council (CFP) and 1.7 percent of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

“The Portuguese economy will grow again from the second quarter of 2021, as measures to contain the covid-19 pandemic are gradually relaxed”, states an excert from the spring economic forecasts.

Brussels also anticipates that Portuguese GDP is expected to reach its pre-crisis level “in the middle of 2022” (the year in which the European Commission expects 5.1 percent growth), something helped by the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism (MRR).

“The projection takes into account strong investment growth, helped by the development of the MRR. It is assumed that the recovery in tourism will gain speed in the third quarter of 2021, but the sector is not expected to have reached its pre-pandemic level”, in 2022.

Portugal was the first EU Member State to deliver the final version of the Recovery and Resilience Plan to the European Commission, providing for a total of €16.6 billion.